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Oh, but times are changed. I dare believe it—What superior bravery can do will be done. But how little does that amount to on such an element? Can bravery keep a ship from sinking? With skill any thing like equal, can any possible difference in point of bravery make up for the difference between two and one?
Consider a little: a ship is not a town, that you can bombard it with orators, and decrees for the encouragement of desertion, and declarations of the rights of men; a ship is not a town, out of which the lukewarm can slip away, or into which a few friends can give you admittance. You are brave: but neither are English seamen remarkably deficient in point of bravery. If you have your lights, they have their prejudices: they may find it not so easy as you may think to comprehend the doctrine of forced liberty: they may prefer a made constitution which gives tranquillity, to an unmade one under which security is yet to come: they may question the right of the thousands who address you, to answer for the millions who are bid to abhor you: they may prefer the George whom they know, to a Frost whom they never heard of.
Hear
